TWD—My (Dorie’s) Best Chocolate Chip Cookies and Cheesecake Hearts

I love chocolate chip cookies, maybe even most of all treats I could eat. For the two cups of flour, I measured 9 ounces. I creamed the butter, then added the 2/3 cup brown sugar and creamed that. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t more sugar to the one cup of butter. I looked at the recipe at least three times. Didn’t see the 1 cup granulated sugar every time. Well, then I did finally see it in time to add to the creamed butter, but sure freaked me out for a minute thinking there wasn’t more sugar in the cookies.

I made one batch of the cookies and thought these were really flat, spread-out and a bit greasy. (Not my favorite kind of ccc.)

Added a little extra baking powder to the rest of the dough and chilled it until the next morning.

Still flatter than I wanted. But even though these are not my kind of chocolate chips cookies, they were pretty good and they certainly all got eaten (not all by me!) I liked the taste and texture the finely chopped pecans gave them. One thing, besides that they were a little too flat and a bit greasy that bothered me about them is their shape. You know, I used a cookie scoop, so all the balls of dough were nice and round, but the cookies kept coming out like this--

I call them amoeba cookies. I thought this was a great pick because I’m really surprised I hadn’t made Dorie’s CCC’s yet as I’m out to try as many chocolate chip cookies as I can! Thanks to Kait from Kait's Plate for this week’s pick. You can find the recipe on her blog.

I’ve still been up to my eyeballs in getting our house ready to put on the market. My mom and I have worked so hard the last two weeks with dejunking (holy cow, what a project!!!) and cleaning. We are having the entire house recarpeted and almost all of it repainted. Our home does not look like our home. Sigh! But we know it’s all good. We’ll be moving to Utah sometime—not exactly sure when---May, June, July??? We’re planning to get the kids through the scho0l year, but with the house going on the market next week, if we get a good offer on it, we’ll do whatever it takes, which may possibly include renting an apartment for a few months. Who knows. I can hardly see past it all being clean up and ready. Now I know it sounds like we must have had the messiest house ever. Nope. But what a job this has been. I’ve told Kevin I NEVER want to move again. I’m also trying very hard not to think about the fact that we are leaving this home and this place (Kansas!) and we will miss our friends here terribly. Sigh.

I have NO idea how we would have gotten so much done with the house if my mom had not been here. I’m not sure what I’ll do when she goes back home on Wednesday. She’s ready to go back to her quiet (boring ;) life with just my dad, but we have sure loved having her here and her help with the house and organizing and dejunking and being with the kids last weekend while Kevin and I went to Utah and having someone to cook with and talk to has been awesome. Thank you, Mommy!

You can also blame her (jk!) for my being gone from the blogging world so much. She hasn’t let me bake like I normally would. She’s such a slave driver! Just kidding. We would be up a creek if she hadn’t been here to keep me going! But I am missing blogging and checking out all my favorite blogs! Please know that if I have missed your blogs lately and haven’t been able to stop by! I won’t even tell you how FULL my reader is right now. Sigh.

Parker and his crazy hair (and crazy self) during spirit week at school (or whatever it’s called) last week!

For Valentine’s Day, I made the boys, including Kevin, as well as my mom, cheesecake for dessert. Just a simple, easy one that I found at Joy of Baking. It’s really cheesecake squares, but I loved that that made them easy and they baked in 20 minutes. Can’t beat that. Instead of cutting them in to squares, since it was Valentine’s Day, I cut them in to hearts. Then I topped them with everyone’s favorite, cherry pie filling.

Then I hurried and snapped a quick, horrible picture in bad lighting. But the cheesecake hearts were delicious.

I really need to get a light box and learn a little food photography!

Check out the recipe at Joy of Baking. Surprise, I followed the recipe exactly… I think. ;)

34 comments:

I always enjoy your latest Dorrie recipe, even though they are sometimes (more often than not?) a bit of a let down. I'm sure the cookies were good, but I agree they don't look like the best. I know you have made many a fabulous batch of CCCs! I still love the NY Times cookie recipe the most. Maybe someone has come up with an even better one since then, who knows?

These were not my favorite cookie, I agree they were good, but not my favorite.Moving is such a pain, exciting maybe, but the work involved in selling/buying, planing and packing is incredible. Thanks for the up date on your move.Mimi

sounds like a lot of people got flat cookies! Mine weren't flat at all. I refrigerated my dough, maybe that helped. I'm glad they were still enjoyed by everyone! Good luck with the dejunking...its one of those projects that doesnt feel satisfying until its been completed!

We are getting our house ready, too. But we aren't moving across the country...hopefully, about 3-4 miles away. but is is SUCH a process. I want to hire someone else to dejunk!I didn't get a chance to comment but I loved last week's post with the throwdown!! what a fun idea. good luck with the house.

You know, I vamped up my recipe with coconut and toasted almond chunks. it was DELICIOUS! I used milk chocolate chips and should have used the bittersweet like Dorie suggested. I think it would have been less sugary sweet. I still think my Mom's recipe is the BEST, but this is a close 2nd..maybe because I'm a coconut and almond fan most of all!!

A home is filled with treasures, memories, mementos and everything else that creates a home. I can not even imagine trying to clean out a whole house, while having young boys in school and worrying about having the whole house recarpeted and repainted. That whole scenario is A LOT of work! You will look back on this and be amazed at yourselves.

You definitely tried to make this recipe work. I tried Dorie's ingredient twist and added chunky peanut butter and deleted 1/4 cup of butter so spreading didn't happen. The recipe calls for a LOT of butter. Your CCC's do look delicious =)

Wow moving is quite the project. I am glad mom is there to help!!! I hope your home sells quickly! the first 6 weeks are the most productive. My suggestion, you gotta have curb appeal!!! To make people want to come into your cute home. I wish you the best. Good Luck!!

The pictures of the cookies and the cheesecake look yummy but I like the picture of the boys best of all. Cheesecake is a close second though. LOLGod bless mothers! Good luck with the sale of the house.

I've missed your blogs and comments, but am so glad you're kicking butt in the house cleaning department! I agree--as written, these were flatty mcflattersons. I added extra flour which really helped. Oh well, even a bad ccc is still pretty tasty!

I am slow getting around this week, and I always save yours for last because I have to see everything you make and oh and ah over the kiddie photos. The photos of the kids are always so adorable, I enjoy them so much, and guess what, the move to Utah won't matter a bit, right, b/c you will still be posting! I cannot imagine getting a house ready to sell with four little ones around...Kudos to you on that alone! We are going to downsize when the boys are off in a year and a half and I am already dreading that process of sorting through everything. Yikes. 20 years of "oh, just put it in the attic and we will figure out later what we are going to do with it" is not a hot prospect for a good time. Your cookies look wonderful, they were a big hit here as the guys like crispy and crunchy a whole lot. I, however, and you knew this was coming, am really drooling over the heart cakes with the cherries on top...oh my those are calling my name!